Pages

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

MEET AND GREET: INTERVIEW WITH PIERCE BROWN.

After years of wishing, screaming, flailing, praying and dreaming, it finally came true. THE dream of meeting Pierce Brown finally happened. And as of this writing, my heart is so so full of joy and I am still on cloud 9 so I might be incoherent again. My knees are still shaking and there's this weird thing in my stomach that I couldn't get rid of. It was just the best day ever I was sooooo hungover by it that it took me 3 weeks to get this recap up!

I was invited by National Bookstore for a 30-minute Meet and Greet with Pierce last August 27 in Raffles. Together with Kai of Amaterasu Reads and JM of The Book Freak Revelations, we went there with so much anticipation. Of course there would be so much anticipation, imagine waiting for this thing to happen since 2014. Pierce was actually at the lobby (I AM FUCKING SHAKING BY JUST REMEMBERING THE ENCOUNTER) and he came and greeted us AND WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, HE'S TALL, VERY GOOD LOOKING AND ABSOLUTELY DREAMY! He's wearing a simple white shirt, denim jeans, white sneakers and a leather jacket like he just came out of an action movie shoot. We then proceeded to one of the corners in the lobby and started the interview.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I introduced myself as the head of his Twitter Street Team, @PBRownPH (which I couldn't remember the password for, damn), and I said we're his PH Gang and I believe he remembered. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him because IS THIS EVEN REAL LIFE?? His eyes are the lightest shade of blue I have ever seen and it's actually bordering to light gray? I was just there, shocked, mezmerized, and wishing hard that that moment won't end.

It wasn't really a formal interview but more like we were there to talk to a friend. He made us feel so comfortable and he made us laugh so much, OMG HE IS HILARIOUS I TELL YA. We did ask questions and he did too so here are some of the bits and pieces from our 23-minute convo:

- He loves Adobo.
- He thought LA traiffic is the worst but I said, welcome to Manila!
- There will be no spoilers for Morning Star during our convo because Kai and I haven't finished reading it yet (thank you, Pierce) and that we have to finish it because Iron Gold is coming out soon.
- Pierce is a huge fan of Game of Thrones. He didn't have more to read after A Feast For Crows so he wrote books while waiting for A Dance with Dragons.
- He hopes he could top RR series with Iron Gold.
- There are 4 more characters he explored in Iron Gold and since we couldn't really get into it without spoiling MS, he only exclaimed: THE STRUGGLE IS REAL
- His favorite character is definitely Sevro (yaaaay) but their only similarity is the swear words because he has way better hygiene haha
- Character deaths he kinda regret: Lorn, Nero, Fitchner, Tactus
- The characters he would bring to life are: Viktra so he could date her wahaha, Tactus because he loved his character and Lorn because it's fun to see how he would respond to Darrow
*talks about GoT S7 EP 06* (yep, we did)
- Golden Son's ending wasn't planned at all. He initially ended it with a happy wedding but then his editor said it doesn't feel right. So Pierce went the complete opposite direction and his editor said *in Pierce's deep voice*: WHAT. THE. FUCK.
- We told him how heartbreaking the ending was and he said: "I am delighted to be able to invoke any emotion in you whatsoever." that's verbatim I mind you.
- We asked him what was going on in his head because Morning Star's initial chapters were so brutal already and he said he was in a deprivation tank for 3 hours so he could get in to Darrow's head for those scenes. Aaaahhh creepy.
- The gravboots weren't inspired by Starwars but his vision of Nero landing in front of EO in Book 1
- If given a chance to change the endings, he wouldn't change anything but perhaps add a little bit more, like more of the Jackal and Darrow in Luna and he would explore the underworld of the said planet.
- He is also open to writing novellas - Lorn's and then Servo's POV on his Pluto Journey
- When asked how does it feel to be a published author at 24 (he was 24 when RR was published), he said he doesn't stop thinking about it, he's aggressive about it, that it's wonderful finishing MS, it's a big validation for sure and the best feeling is sharing the experience with readers who get to imagine the world he built.
- The movie is developing, he will share more in the coming months. It was bought by Universal and he wrote the scripts.
- Casting for Darrow - someone unknown, it's really about finding someone who can show the emotion and has to have the presence, should also be terrifying for the part
- He is also writing a fantasy series called LampLight (wooohoooo!)
- We taught him SALAMAT
- We showed him our Golden Son ARCs and he loved it!
- I told him it was a dream come true to meet him and he said we were very pretty persistent on Twitter (which confirms he noticed HAHAHA)

HE IS SO AMAZING, ISN'T HE??

After the short interview ( I SWEAR I DIDN'T WANT IT TO END), we asked if he could sign our books and take photos with him. You see, I wasn't really myself in the course of this interview because ughhhh I forgot to:
- ask for a short video for his message to fans and
- take a #KaiSelfie (Kaiiiiiii!!!)
I mean, I dunno man but I was just simply on cloud nine floating and unbelievably grateful for this wonderful chance~~~~~

I will never ever ever ever forget this day to be honest. I waited a long time for this to actually happen - wait no... I actually gave up! I wasn't expecting this anymore. So THANK YOU SO EVER MUCH PIERCE FOR COMING TO MANILA!!!! It truly means so so much to me, to all your fans here!!